That’s up from its low just a week ago of $1.63 and could indicate renewed faith in the struggling smartphone company. From the look of it, most analysts and perhaps now investors think the worst is now behind Nokia. Having hit bottom, the company can only go up (or die trying).

That’s not to say all is healthy. Investors, analysts and even Nokia themselves are still predicting next quarters earnings to continue to be weak. A return to profitability is still at least a few months away, assuming the company has a hit with Windows Phone 8 and carrier deals for their devices.

In related news, the cuts at the company continue and friend of the site and class act Keith Nowak, who handled Nokia’s PR in the US, has unfortunately been let go today. Our best wishes to him in the future. You can read about Keith’s experience with Nokia on his personal blog—it’s a great read.

US Cellular has informed PCMag that they are looking forward to Windows Phone 8, which will play a major part of the carrier's lineup. The carrier currently holds a single Windows Phone - the HTC 7 Pro. It's a positive sign to see the smaller US carriers positive announce their support for Microsoft's mobile platform.

"We believe in giving our customers the latest technology and device options and we are excited about the Windows 8 phone. It will be an important part of our device lineup going forward."

It's going to be exciting to see which Windows Phone 8 devices go where, and how the carriers play their part in the marketing and promotion of the platform. We're yet to hear anything from Sprint, which has the potential to disappoint loyal Sprint Windows Phone owners who are arguably amongst the most dedicated.

We mentioned the Windows Phone "Ghost Hotel" publicity stunt back on December. At the time, we were a little unclear what exactly the event was, though we surmised it had to do with regular people being a part of some live role-playing/mystery event. Turns out, we were pretty spot on as WP7App.de confirmed with us at the time:

"That windows phone hotel was a PR event where you had to chase ghosts (ghostbusters-style) with an app on a Lumia."

In fact it was more than that as they were basically recreating the classic 1984 movie 'Ghostbusters' but with a Windows Phone twist. The teaser video was fun but now we have a longer video posted by Microsoft Germany that sheds light on the whole Windows Phone-Ghostbuster media event. And it looks like it was a lot of fun.

Well, it is in German and features a lot of QR codes, but you'll get this gist. Once again, kudos to Microsoft and Nokia for another ingenious show.

Source: Microsoft.DE; Thanks, Andrea M., for the link--sounds like you had a great time!